 Present here the fraud watch network presentation on fraud and how we can avoid it now the people are who are trying to tack you with it what they want you to think how they want you to think their way and you can be a little bit armed ahead of time that's the big thing well that's a lost cause you know they well we'll see you some of the reason behind that my name is Bill April okay and I've volunteered with the doubling up here for I'd watch here from my I've given those talks like this all the way from Pillington all the way up to Canaan so I've seen a lot of different folks have a lot of issues but all boils down to one thing when they get scammed they want to know how to prevent it and this is one of the things we're going to do we're going to talk about fraud trends the Connors playbook about prevention and resources we have that Connors playbook over here yeah this is the Connors playbook and we'll get into that in a few minutes so we're going to get on here and first we've talked about fraud trends okay is it too much with the door open for a competition I know I speak pretty loud so I should be able to okay good okay the top scams of Vermont imposter scams the computer tech support and debt collection those are three biggies that we're seeing in Vermont now imposter scams are just what it says somebody calling up and they're saying they're one thing when in fact they're not that person or that entity they call but say hi on this is a Mark Anderson from the IRS okay when they're not from the IRS or they're calling from Social Security or they're calling from your bank or they're calling from any place and they're saying there's a maybe a they're just saying that you're it's your grandson your granddaughter this is an imposter scam well how do we know it they're not gonna tell us who they really are that's the problem computer tech support where somebody calls up or is on your on your computer and says oh you've got a problem you come here we have to fix that and we've had people call up and they say call on the phone okay you got a problem your computer so when my computer is on oh but we've had records of that okay we have records your computer sends us an email telling us when you have a problem it doesn't I've worked over 30 years in the computer industry okay these guys do not call up looking to fix problems we've had enough problems to fix all their own okay but why it was also worked over 30 years in the computer history and neither one of us okay I'm going to expect to get any kind of phone calls from Microsoft or Apple or anybody else so if you ever get a phone call from somebody saying hi I'm from Microsoft or I'm from Apple you know probably your machine or I'm from some other tech support company it's a lie okay do not accept that information do not accept that call it's a scam the debt collection is another one where you have a case where somebody said oh you you've won this money you say well how was that that collection because they're gonna say oh but you you might have won 75 million dollars in this Jamaican lottery wow and that's just that's just gonna be great I can solve all kinds of problems with that and then you think about it it's okay then when they start saying oh but to get that money because it's from Jamaica we're gonna change the coin they don't use the same US dollar over there that gonna cost you some money or if you get a call from the IRS and they say why you have to take this information over here you have to send us some money and your own money or could be that they say okay well we have a check for you and the check where you will be able to check out to you just give me the information and we'll be able to check out to you in a couple of days and then once they know you've cashed that check okay it's a pony check they'll call you back and they say oh but I'm so sorry the check we sent you I was supposed to go to somebody else with your same name the middle of this was a little bit different maybe okay and then they'll say well we need to have that three or four hundred dollars back where's that money gonna come from if it's a fake check because of your account yeah so there's a lot of different ways to get collection it could be a charity thing tell yellow where we heard that you have put some forms over here that said you have you're gonna you're gonna give some money to this charity okay and oh okay that's that debt debt collection or whether it be calling from a bank there's a lot of differences a bit of debt collection so now this is from about I think it's two 2016 when we found out that 21 million people had lost 19 billion dollars now the problem with this is that this is only the ones that we know about just just think for a minute if you lose two or three or four or five thousand dollars are you gonna stand up in front of these friends over here and say hey I just lost five thousand dollars now nobody's gonna do that that's how we know this is only the tip of the iceberg and there's a whole lot more than that that lost more money from emails from websites they go to from phone calls you name it there's a lot of different ways to do that you talk about identity theft identity theft is having any one of these Medicare cards or Social Security cards or driver's license any pieces of that information okay it's part of your identity and all of that together can be a complete identity theft just a partial identity theft okay does anybody here have their Medicare card with them today you do you shouldn't have to carry that no because if your your first is ever stolen okay now they can use your card and they can go and and charge up back braces and knee braces and all kinds of things so the only time you ever need to do that when you go to the doctor for the first time and that doctor does not have your Medicare card but the second time guess what they don't ask for it do they because they already have it in their computer never want to carry that with you you never want to get their money back okay well they'll they'll get money because they'll charge it and don't come out of your account because they have you know that's right so you don't actually you don't want to carry that much going to if you wrote it was specialist maybe you got a bad knee and they said okay you have to go this specialist for that bad knee okay well he may or may not have you are your Medicare card at that point okay then you'll okay I want to bring it but after that never bring your Medicare card along with it yeah we have we have boxes over here and inside the boxes we have these little containers over here and these are safe for any kind of credit cards you can take those and some of the new credit cards that come out and they'll have a wireless connection and then these new the brand new credit cards and with a wireless connection they can have a scanning thing you just tap something you see it on TV where they just tap on them they get your information well those will protect those cards if somebody has a device nearby to steal your information you know what I was born many years ago since then I don't use credit cards in restaurants at all because a lot of waiters have those when they take it to to you know the process that they have something that was called this sort of thing on their belt so the identity theft is what it's really really a driving piece over here because with the identity theft someone's identity is stolen every two seconds so we've had a lot of identity stolen in just the time I was talking about that now here's a example here free summoner identifying old scams register send name address and social security number okay you never want to respond to anybody asking for social security number you shouldn't even have to carry a card okay at this time we all know that none we've given that number out told me so many times we should never have to carry that car around either okay that's very very good yeah and the scary part is they mean what and then you'd like to think that they screen them so well yeah that they're not going to come back to haunt you but how when you go to the hospital the first thing you have to do is go over your records right you know when the blend security is everything you see they'll say everything the same right and you'll say yes but it used to be you can't be one and you let them go through it'll verify certain pieces of address birthday so correct and you trust them because you know the hospital if they have to run a background check they have to have that for when they run a background check on somebody to see if they're a citizen like then they have to have that yeah so this over here this is an example of someone who was it was a victim and Jean was living in a house with her husband over there and Jean got a phone call from man telling her she had won seven point nine million dollars and you make a lot of that immediately wow that was that's just so I didn't buy a ticket that was her first response and that's a good one I didn't buy a ticket as well after they have a drawing and all the people who have won this is we couldn't get a hold of anybody who wants so we have to give the money away that's the law in Jamaica so he says well in fact that's not the law in Jamaica and this guy is him it doesn't have anything to do with Jamaica okay he may not even be in Jamaica it's a scam he's trying to say okay fine and this is the case where oh yeah well you've got seven point nine million dollars but because we have to transfer that from the Jamaican money over to the US money it's gonna cost you a couple thousand dollars oh then we also have to get the money transferred from our our bank over here to your bank over there the bank has to feed that's another five hundred dollars and it goes on and it goes on and it goes on all this money all these transfers all these conversions go on like that she lost her he thousand dollars exactly you trust people and after a while you think well all the things that I that I said seem to be right well the way he answered seem to be right and they were convincingly cash and it wasn't she didn't lose thirty thousand dollars right away it took her several weeks quite a few weeks before well this fee and then that fee and then this conversion after a while she'll wait a minute she went ahead and she called up the state place and she called up other other other FBI and the Federal Trade Commission so forth and they get involved this whole thing and they she lost three thousand dollars and she I don't know if this point over here where she was in that went with they were in the country around the country but she lost that a lot of money now we're gonna see one little story here just sit at that table right there lunch at Bill Bowes barbecue outside of Atlanta the ribs are hot the tea sweet the tables full local stockbroker Steve sampler is taking a client to lunch advising on the menu this part of the country is fairly conservative and that reflects Steve's own advice to clients build wealth safely nothing too risky but Steve does not take his own advice Steve recently lost forty thousand dollars in an oil and gas scam purchasing unregistered shares in non-producing oil wells if it can happen to me it can happen to anyone he's right about that Steve is a licensed professional stockbroker smart with two degrees accounting and marketing management but he was taken in by a con man with a telephone of course they did say that they really hated for me to miss this opportunity and it was a it would I would probably never get this type of opportunity again the con used an old trick scarcity telling Steve there were only a few units left to invest in and he had the move quickly he'd make ten times his investment Steve did not bite at first but the calls continued week after week as I began to talk to him more and and of course he knew he knew basically he was wearing me down Steve began to know and like the salesman a big mistake everyone has a tendency to trust people once you get to know them particularly you want to trust them you don't want to think bad of them it's not gonna happen in the first call it's gonna happen if the months and months of doing business with that person that you're gonna be endeared to the personality and share intimate things about your life with them when somebody starts taking you down that personal lean and asking you about memories and asking you about what makes you tick they're doing what I'm telling you we did I did which was set up my arsenal for the clothes the salesman I dealt with I knew all about his family his wife his children where he lived Steve sent twenty thousand dollars in and received official looking securities and did some due diligence I talked to the district manager in Dallas oh yes there are 15 wells out there it just everything was just right in place so he sent in another 20,000 and it was gone the Shell Company liquidated shut down by the authorities he's your friend but then one day he disappears still how and why does a professional like Steve fall for this the older I've gotten the more the more risk I'm willing to take for some reason but you know I think what that stems from is I'm not where I thought I should be at this point in life oh I'm trying to hit home runs Steve like so many investors was trying to play catch up and all two common tendency among mature investors he wanted to hit one out of the park home runners strike out more often than than the base hitters and that's what happened to me and that's what'll happen to anyone else that is not very careful especially today he felt victim to trust and he did as much as he thought he should do for due diligence but when he went to contact people he contacted the people at this scander total contact so they go back yeah here's and then here's them they went ahead to the computer like I've done over here and they put that special security notes it filled all the right blank yeah he was used to seeing this guy it made sense to him and now for somebody else they wouldn't left it $20,000 richer but because they saw this guy was an investment counselor secure oh we're gonna take a little bit more out of the sky sure enough they went ahead and not a second 20,000 double payment I'll get to the car notice playbook which is this little booklet over here and this is something that the folks at the fraud watch group put together and you see all these different tapes over here these are audio tapes and video tapes that the fraud watch people have gone to convicted felons who are imprisoned and asked them how did you do it why did you do it so they've got all that information in here as far as the kind of things that they did why they did it and so forth and we'll see some more examples of how why they did it on here but that's what they we referenced the colonists playbook so this over here you guys here's some undercover audio recordings of these guys in jail as they made phone calls or as they made recordings to other people okay people these these have these things saved on their voicemail and the first few of these messages that they believe on voicemail are going to be nice and congenial and so forth but then you'll notice a change in the flavor of the messages what'll happen is that as these people continue to call somebody then the call the flavor of the calls going to change so you'll listen to that and you'll see what happens here with that if you don't want to make up your mind right now that's where I come in I will make up your mind for you this is enough money for you to go to your grave knowing that you went and did the right thing and you can go and meet God with a clear conscience now what do you want to do see how the flavor changes as they continue to call somebody and if they don't get the the beginning information from somebody and they call them again good little information and they get more familiar with people as that goes on then if as people get more reluctant and you get these kind of messages over here and when he says up or burning house down if you ever looked on the corner computer did a Google search and just put your home address in you can see your picture of your home right on the on the internet it's very very easy because Google has gone around to try and make it easy for a lot of other people for other reasons to drive around and then everybody's house has a picture on the internet you you put in your house address and they'll show that the car will have stopped in front of your house taking a picture and they do that several times a year so if he's in India or if he's in Pakistan he's in the Philippines or he's in Puerto Rico somewhere and they they call and say oh I'm gonna burn your house down okay he'll describe or should describe that oh this your house you get the gray with the purple shutters you got two big pine trees all fine you get the split real fence your garage is on the right side you go oh my god he's been here but guess what he's in some other country more than likely but they'll tell you that and you'll you'll get nervous because that's how they want you to think that's how they want you to to feel about that okay and we're gonna look at this three different other kinds of talk to for instance is Rocky Smith Bart Chandler we'll see more here in just a few minutes and see them right the tactic of authority is a strong persuader in many scams the con artist wants to appear to be someone you can trust I'd be on the phone with the victim purporting to be the president of a bank and in all actuality I'm at a pay phone craving cocaine Bart Chamberlain is a convicted telephone con man over the years he claimed to be various vice presidents bank managers even FBI agents and because he set up the authority from the start with all the trappings all the fancy titles he's able to then rely on that to tell the person what to do I'm with Vegas Nevada the reason for the call sir through through action from the US attorney's office in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigations subsequent seizures of property and auctions they're in I guess the reason they follow the instructions because they thought that they were talking to someone in authority a bank president an executive vice president of a big corporation a US attorney an FBI agent whoever it was it was a person in position of authority and they didn't know once they if they believed that I was who I said I was and that they would they would act accordingly Chamberlain would take on any role he could think of to help him make his scams more believable congratulations you've walked away with the biggest award we've ever given away Charlie Miller here executive vice president of principal marketing I want to congratulate you personally on your award mr. Jones my last name is Jones to I'm mr. Robert Jones from Mobile Alabama I'll be coming out to your house personally to take photographs of you congratulations even jail walls didn't stop Chamberlain from projecting authority after his arrest he used his telephone privileges to make more calls from pay phones inside the jail the $20,000 I told you about I did it while I was in custody how did that work that's tricky isn't it well basically I had I called the gentleman up collect I told him I was a I was on my weekend warrior duty as a US marshal at the local jail mr. Jones this is Jim O'Neill here I'm calling you collect down from the county jail I'm down here this weekend doing my weekend warrior duty as a US marshal the reason for the call and the the urgency that necessitated I call you over the weekend collect is that I've spoken to our corporate headquarters out in New York and our accounting firm in Los Angeles and it's my great pleasure to let you know that by next Tuesday or Wednesday you will in fact receive your cashers check for $225,000 now there is one final amount of business that I have confirmed through our general accounting office in Los Angeles I want you to write this down we are gonna need you to go ahead and send out $20,000 to cover you for everything that prior to this point has been overlooked I had him send $20,000 and cashers checks to a third party who from there handled it for me a scam artist the economic fraud criminal will take any role they need to take to get you in a role to do exactly what they want authority is also projected in the sophisticated mailers sent out by scammers the mailings look very official very real with their certificates and seal now a lot of the publishers clearing house that's a very common word right now as a publisher's clearing house calling up and saying you you've won this you're qualified for that most of those are a scam the ones that come in the mail usually okay but they there's still this kind of thing where they want you to buy a lot of stuff before and all the sweepstations a few months away but they don't tell you when it is oh you better you know buy these things over here for your kitchen for your bathroom for your home whatever might be okay now this fellow over here we saw Jimmy and again he's in prison and he's gonna tell you what they did how they did it these are dangerous people you're on the phone with okay make no bones about it I am a dangerous person on the telephone if I choose to be fortunate in my practices there is nothing that's gonna stop me from taking lots of money from people period and there are many other people just as interested and the point is that they they seem to have no qualms about it to say I shouldn't do this I feel bad about doing this this is how they make their money some people can use this talent to go out and sell cars to sell real estate and be legitimate these guys I need the money whether it be for drugs or just greed they say what he does and they'll talk about getting people under the ether years ago when we went to the hospital oh we have to get heavy tonsils out they gave you ether only the gas mask right well now they've got more complicated chemicals and so forth and they give you gas they put you out for for operation but the thing is they wanted you to get to a point where you wouldn't feel any pain so they put you under the ether well now the word ether in this case is referring to a heightened emotional state whether it be the call from the alleged grandchild or whether it be the IRS okay to share again call my arrest boy the hair your arms stands right up you get nervous and you know what's gonna happen now okay well you get something from a bank and they're gonna give you some money or lottery wins heightened emotional state that's what they want you to feel I'm gonna get to listen to Jimmy again the crush or the kill is emotionally driven it's not logic if you apply logic to this concept it's no I'm not going to send you my hard-earned money I don't even know who you are know you from Adam when I when I wrap that in tons of emotion that blurs the logic goes out the window the emotion kicks in now I've endured you to me now I'm no longer the predator on the phone I'm just that's how they want you to feel and that's what you have to be aware of so when you do get these phone calls and you hear the story they start asking you questions so forth this is what they try to do they try to endear themselves to you right so you build up that trust exactly so we're going to the economy's playbooks don't talk about persuasion tactics and the the persuasion tactics go over a lot of different areas but basically they're going to use these tactics to build up trust so we get into is all these different audio takes that we've made of all these convicted people here in the states obviously we didn't have a lot of access to people in the Philippines or in India or Pakistan but we got people locally who were convicted these things and we found out this information they're talking about things like phantom riches okay profiling scarcity source credibility fear and intimidation so we've seen this over here on those voicemail messages they left for people okay source credibility we've seen like as in Bart said and you notice how when he showed those three little clips of Bart driving above he had three different voices three different accents for three different areas of the self okay he had recognized that this is a clue I'm going to tell people all this information I'm going to tell him in something that they feel comfortable with familiar with so they'll think I'm the guy from the bank down the street and phantom riches we saw how Jean will will certainly go ahead on one seven million dollars wonderful yeah I don't mind for seven point nine million dollars I don't mind giving you a few thousand dollars over here to convert the currency okay and profile we haven't talked about that too much profile is when as they talk with you about the same then they find out more about you they find out where you live now they'll see an address but they don't know they don't know that 802 was all over one very few of these people have any idea of geography but they will probably what you live on is it a rural town are you over the city or the condo they don't know they'll find you some information about you and try to get information about your family okay and they'll build up a profile and as they build up a profile I say oh well I can attack this area I can ask you about that area I can all I can let's something over here I'll ask a few more questions about this whether it be somebody whose husband or wife has passed on how long that was all they'd be so sympathetic and the idea of a scarcity and again that scarcity thing something where somebody has offered you something look it's only good for this day what times we'll get the things in the mail and you'll say come to our financial seminar and it'll be over here we'll offer you free roast beef dinner or shrimp delight so this is bring a free dinner okay so they send you there you call up and say oh yeah what is it oh that's over here you're over here at 6 p.m. over here with the this restaurant here is wow this is great and they got all these people 20 30 people in the back room okay and they got nice dinner they all serve it up wonderful this is great and he started talking about different finance stuff well with the scarcity comes when he says now I'm only here for one day red flag right there won't hear for one day and he says I've got these options over here on the table and I want you to consider them he's not going to push you to go buying right now but he will be at the top first thing off is he registered in Vermont does he have an office in Vermont if he's not offered he does if he's not registered or have an office in Vermont okay he can't sell anything in Vermont but a lot of folks don't realize that they assume because he spent the money to get here to offer all those people free dinner that he's got the money that he's part of Vermont not necessarily the way you want to make sure okay wherever you're where you're registered with your office okay can I can I see that office and if you want looking if you better fall with you you've got a lot top with you you know type in his office see where what comes up with okay if he says he does have it often he'll but oftentimes they'll say well I don't have it here I'm working through this on the brokerage firm over here whoa wait a minute thanks for the dinner I'm out of here okay red flags all around so his a case here of Phantom riches the grand prize is 25,000 cold hard cash before the water is up to $3 million this Saturday if you join our club you know 4,800 tickets that's 4,800 chances to win and they split it among this this club well who else is in the club is it anybody down the street that I might know are they all in Florida or they own California or they in Texas okay you don't know who he just said there's a club these people are in there profiling if you don't mind my ask how long your husband been deceased now he'll follow that trail for a little bit let me ask you something it sounds like a wonderful home there how much is the mortgage month then they'll stop following the finance trail how's the bank how are the people over there they the good tell us what kind of hours they have over there he's not going to do anything with that bag but he wants to know if that's a good bank to do business with okay I get trying to build your trust scarcity we only have four years left this investment officer you need to make a decision soon or you'll miss out he's only here for that one day this is a limited time to scarcity fact only 24 hours left before the software will expire you have to act now and never want to make a decision money kind of a vessel on a very short term notice that's that's a definite big red flag okay this case over here we show these coins by times they'll say well there's only 27,000 coins of this ever minted okay did they serialize coins I never seen any serialized coins yet if he says there's only four of these left how does he know doesn't he just telling you what do you want you to hear scarcity so it's credibility get a call from somebody says I'm a senior vice president here with the NBA and certified to deal with seniors and I believe is exactly the right part for you and they're gonna tell you you can you can make 6% in a year wow if I'm lucky I'm gonna get you know less than a half percent of my savings account it's actually you know probably get nothing and a CD if you're lucky you might get maybe one and a half to 2% for several years okay and here they've got a product over here that'll put you right in good and like like the first Steve was saying the investment counselor he was saying you know I'm my age I want to make sure I can get that little extra push for me over the over the edge so I'll have plenty of left over for my I'm not working anymore so that's source credibility here's a fear of intimidation this is what they would say once I get hold of victim I want to let them never let them go even when they told me they were out of money I said well borrow the money this is a sure thing this is how they want you to think urgency okay scarcity fear of intimidation so we're gonna go through some practice over here and you'll see where they talk about different persuasion tactics now John back in 1860 from the Philadelphia Mint there were 22,675 of these coins minted of those 22,000 only four have survived only four for God's sakes just that's something that's a scarcity thing and so they were look it's only gonna happen this day well how many other people is he calling besides this particular fellow here and it'll go on and on and on okay so that's that's a scarcity thing okay and that's he's from Steve Michaels we saw him earlier okay plus we should tactic saw that and that's a scarcity so we'll go back over here we'll see another one the following is a paid advertisement for John Beck's newly updated free and clear real estate system the average home in America now costs more than two hundred and nineteen thousand dollars but you're about to learn how you can start buying homes like these for just a few hundred dollars and on them free and clear with no additional monthly payments hi I'm Michelle Boudreau the homes you just saw and the many examples you'll see throughout this program were all purchased for literally pennies on the dollar using the amazing secrets found in John Beck's free and clear real estate system the secrets behind John's system are strategies that most people don't even know exist unique strategies that take full advantage of today's real estate market to purchase homes all across the country for as little as a few hundred dollars and John's strategies don't just apply to homes they apply to all kinds of real estate for instance you could buy home sites ready to build on in lakefront communities for as little as ten dollars and listen to this the purchase for amount shown for each property you'll see today like this home that was purchased for only five hundred and twenty one dollars and fifty six cents is the amount paid to own each property free and clear with no monthly payments coming up you'll get to meet John Beck the creator of the amazing free and clear real estate system and learn how you can start using his system right now to purchase properties all across the country it was too loud yeah okay but this is this goes to show here how they were put this is a real commercial on television she didn't go she was a hired actress just okay well maybe a thousand dollars I'll say this and he's the one who went to jail and this is very common world where a lot of these people develop this situation where they'll have all these books and things you have to go much like President Trump has Trump University that eventually folded okay and he had to pay back a whole bunch of people well a bunch of money because they bought this stuff and they weren't getting the same kind of return on investment that they were promised same kind of a thing just a lot of research a lot of books a lot of presentations no money coming back exactly a lot of the properties are properties that are in really bad shape okay you're going to buy from a bank under foreclosure then you're going to have to do a lot of work to repair them to the current standards he ended up going to court and fighting it but he ended up losing and he ended up having to pay yeah that was only just a few years ago was this after the election hi folks I'm Adam West oh I wish I'd had one of these in the old cave it's called Easy Link and it's from Pantheon Holdings your business opportunity leaders Easy Link is a public access internet terminal and soon you could be seeing them everywhere they provide all these services and products and they could all spell profit for you I never carried half that stuff in my old belt give Easy Link a call right now and tomorrow you'll get the full info kit plus the money report on DVD Easy Link sets it all up and helps you find the best locations Easy Link could be your ticket to the good life you don't need to be a superhero to be super successful this could be the ultimate turnkey operation for you for your free info kit give the folks at Easy Link a call right now that's the only device they ever made and they came out literally months before smartphones came out before Apple had their iPhone so if you look at all the things that it was doing all these smartphones do it today and they did it just a few months after this came out but it was the point was that this was all news that was coming out about potential iPhones and things you can do with the internet so they brought this out they will find people who come out they'll buy this out they'll invest in them and the device didn't exist and we'll tell okay you go here University mall go ahead a Berlin wall go there they can call one another and have a webcam video they can go ahead they can do shopping while the ready to find out all about what's going on at people's store Marsfeld I can find out what's going on or it says over here and the horn yards it's be great wonderful thing however hey didn't exist but you had to buy all the stuff you pay into it you get the help from the company what what walls to go to and so forth okay who to contact but this again is using trust okay we all know Adam West from Batman did he ever say he was Batman no we didn't okay he mentioned his belt my daughter or somebody to check out some of what you're saying then they really stuck when I'm picking up like they want to get more information to you directly right so you'll forget your exactly yeah but this over here is using the idea of a trust over here for somebody we know no we knew years ago from being on the Batman show and he didn't say anything about being a superhero he said at the very age that you don't have to be a superhero didn't say like I was that was implied he is saying you have to carry these out he said he carried in carry things like it on his belt and again implied didn't say anything about being a superhero character he didn't talk about things like that but he implied on that so we're we're trying to tie in this trust issue so we look at another one over here this one is not a true story it's one is made up but to show a lot of elements of what they want you to do look into this one ladies and gentlemen I have to tell you that I have never seen anything that we have ever offered here on the smart shopping network that is getting the response we are getting tonight for the miracle shim look at that isn't that attractive and if you have a chair or a table at home that's a little tipsy and I bet a lot of you do there is no better product you can find than the miracle shim now look at this chair here little tipsy isn't it you probably have one like it but you just slip one of these little beauties right under that chair or table leg that's not quite touching the floor as well as the others and voila problem is solved these are the same shims used in the White House Buckingham Palace the Taj Mahal has lots of them and all of Donald Trump's homes to every single one of them and he has a lot of them you know Princess Diana it is said would not sit at a table until it had been specially leveled with miracle shims she had a guy with her went with her all the time he had a bag full of shims now I'm gonna be honest with you you cannot find miracle shim in the stores you just can't they're not available in stores they're not available from anywhere but right here right now from me and they're not gonna be here long either believe me I'm a told the Hickory now is really selling like hot cakes so let's take a look at the counter and whoa my goodness over 12,000 sold just since I've been on the air these sold out completely last time we had them on the air so I'm not surprised by that we have got Bernie from normal Illinois on the line how are you my friend hi I just called to say that I love my miracle shims do you know I just bought three more of them tonight yeah and my neighbors trying to get true to you right now to buy some well you better hurry cuz I'm told the cedar just sold out I bought one for my wife our anniversary is coming up well your wife has herself one thoughtful husband yeah well you know it sure beats buying a new dining room set well thank you Bernie and you know he raises a very good point folks new dining room set several hundred dollars for only five easy payments of 998 as the kids say that's a no-brainer but I'm I'm told now the miracle shims are all sold out they are all gone except you know for this one here under the chair oh wait a minute I just thought of another one we've got right on this is a made up this is not a real product okay this is not a real product this was a story that they made up just for the just yeah you would this was this was just a story to show the different kind the elements of a compressed time you would have or that the the decreased price scarcity all of these elements and here was a fellow who was a trusted spokesperson for this yeah but for something like that on television let's say how would you know how would you be able to differentiate whether it's a scam or whether it's a good one oh that's a good point this so this case over here was one of them just made up but if you went to the home shopping channel and bought something out of there okay they're a pretty well established channel that they have constant kinds of products coming through computers and dining room sets and and all kinds of things like that so all of these things that they have they were relatively trustworthy line but this case over here was showing how ridiculous it could be he was saying Donald Trump hasn't for instance I haven't had and so Taj Mahal has oh my god you know yeah they're just going to show that the idea of scarcity and then the things coming back so we as they were showing that the decreased price that the quality over here this thing is all it's gonna be gone a matter of minutes okay we only got 324 minutes and only the price over here so it's a great deal so there's a lot of elements to this what they were trying to present and obviously here being to trust his folks first sure because they're breaking up the issue of trust go on Trump had a princess I had him Taj Mahal had him well if they're good enough for them must be good enough for me so over here cops as I get them away for anniversary oh I guess he felt they had some value now my it's but this is the point this was something we made up example of what these guys were just an example to show how these can be carried away with different products so here we're going to get into mention the prevention strategies never make a buying decision to heighten emotional state if they say it's only here for today fine I don't want to hear about it okay it was a good good decision it will be here the next day or the next day after that ask questions you're gonna find out more about what this is that's so special can't we will call Taj Mahal and say do you have miracle shoes or do you have this so but you have to ask questions in other places and see if anybody knows anything about this read about the product before buying you go to the library and look up to look up this information here okay develop a refusal script to stop I don't want interactions when they start calling you and calling you and calling you you have to be able to say in your head how do I say no look at this right now you have to be able to really be aware of that that's Steve Carell from the office and this was an example of somebody fixed on saying no here's another refusal script over here I can't talk right now why don't you give me your home number and I'll call you later I guess you don't want people calling you at home well I know how I say okay he knew how to say you know some of the progressive strategies here we go protect your social security number personal information okay make sure you only give it out where you have to give it up mark to your bills and financial accounts when you have your checking accounts your savings accounts any kind of investments make sure you can monitor that stuff online and when you want to that you just don't want to be able to go to a website and put a name and password in that anybody else can have okay you want to be able to have what they call two-factor authentication such that when you log in you put a password and then it's all come back and say how shall we make give you this this other pin number either by an email or by a phone or by a text and they'll automatically send you whichever you choose so if you got a text you got a phone book you got a text phone okay and it'll tell you what the code is you have to put on the screen to see your accounts okay that's two-factor authentication whether it be a phone number or it's okay we'll call me at my phone and they'll already have that phone number listed because this is your bank and your your information is in there so you cause okay fine and put the name and your password okay on the call you up it's okay and they give you a recording that will repeat it three or four or five times and you type it into your to the web page and you get in to see your information okay that's two-factor authentication that's running the way you want to do that and you want to monitor your bills or financial accounts the reason why you want to monitor it because if somebody does get some of your information and they're able to go ahead and impersonate you then what you can do is if you monitor that you can see I give you a couple of weeks three weeks four weeks if you wait a four weeks when the statement comes in they've had a whole month working as you rating up bills that you're going to end up paying okay so you want to check it every week or every two something like that do your homework before investing if you invest in place you look at HTTP smart check.gov now here is that HTTP any place that has any kind of financial information has got to have HTTPS okay the yes should be on there for security watch over your query reports go to annualqueryport.com there's a phone over there you can get this information over here we have these sheets and everyone should take one of these sheets on the front and on the back of these sheets and information about where to go for information about your credit reports where to invest who to report problems to all of that is on that list protect your pins and passwords and you say well protect your pins and passwords you have to have a list you know I have a list of my computer I don't call it password I call it something else and I have it on here they also print it out every once in a while because these passwords should be changed every few months six months seven months whatever might be there must be changed okay and the pins the password if they're changed you know you have to just go print out your list again okay now whether you keep it on your computer whether you keep it in the printout maybe have a little booklet and then keep it in your way okay protect your information online so when you go online make sure if you go someplace and you're going to see a message from somebody it's all about a part-time job okay part-time sounds interesting and you have this fill up form when you want to fill the form up they're going to request it you give them all your information now I mean a valid place necessarily so be careful of that okay protect your mail now when they protect your mail that's just the surface mail as after you go to octel three screen so you're not going to get stuff mailed to you from a car dealership or a plumber or electrician advertising his business okay you want to octel three screen or this so number over here or DMA direct marketing access choice okay it's going to prevent by getting your name listed they're not going to send you that stuff sign up for the do not call registry now the do not call registry is only good for legitimate businesses because the guys who was trying to scam you they're already illegal why would they worry about a do not call registry they're going to call you anyway okay but it'll it'll prevent some of the extra calls coming to you from legitimate businesses double check references that somebody gives you a reference and they say on an email or they give you on the phone call just call this guy over here well that's a friend of theirs somebody they want you to trust as well as you trust this first guy okay so don't double check the references with once that they give you call up somebody else call a better business bureau federal call our federal trade commission the double AP dot org fraud watch network we've got people on numbers on that list again that are on their volunteers who have all this information if you have any questions they'll be certainly happy to help you there as well okay verify charities and here's a four different websites over here charity watch dot org charity never hear dot org give dot org guys up these are all the organizations and all they do is verify charities I've got a great experience with charity and aggregators but they don't only verify but they tell you what the salaries are the same example over here exactly and it shows over here it's kind of read tough to read over here well wildlife fund and it shows their address and it shows who's the chairman over here and shows the present CEO and it shows other information to get all this information over here this is all very good interest information but how to verify who it is the money to okay and in this case over here goes to accountability and transparency score here and then over here they have what they call it a financial score here so both of these factors are very trustworthy that you'll find over here is where that charity rating will be it's very easy to figure that out and here we have fraud watch network and here we have on there you can go to a list long-force alerts for whatever place now if you go on this place over here you can say Vermont you can put in zip code for whatever town you're in and it'll show you the state and all of these triangles are reported scams okay that we don't have a sheet for that but if you go to this fraud watch network you'll be able to see on there they'll talk about the map and then that will be over here shows you the map of the whole country and you say okay well I want to look at this zip code and put the zip code and I'll put in Montpelier Vermont or you put it because it broids in Vermont whatever might be okay and if you just put down Montpelier then there are other Montpeliers in the United States and they'll give you a list of what other states have Montpeliers so you just choose one says Vermont but they'll show you all these different these are all alerts in fact if you wanted to there's a slide over here on the right side of this that we don't show on this screen over here but you can actually submit an alert of something that has happened to you so with this alert you're filling over here somebody will verify that and then they'll you'll find them you click on any of these triangles you'll find that alert will be there so this is a relatively off-to-date thing and this is the phone number we have for the fraud watch network 877-908-3360 and that's on that sheet over there okay so if you take this sheet of this these over here that gives you all the information don't any of the questions that are of a brought up that it's a big thing today and it's sad for grandchildren and whatnot that aren't aware yet that because they don't want to let people in back when I was younger right and you think that it be so easily scammed right well as far as the the size of the group of people who get scammed the younger people with everything on their smartphones they're the ones who get scammed the most but the people who get taken for more money it's the old crowd okay all of our seniors are one so that we typically have more money that's easily easily easily taken by these scammers whether it be investments whether it be pensions whatever it might be we may have more money than the other people because obviously with we've saved we've got pensions we work for it we've got other avenues of investments things like that and we have that and we always try to get that little bit extra to put ourselves in a more comfortable spot oh what happens if I get ill do I have long-term care oh my goodness I gotta think about that okay with all these things so if I only had another 50,000 so when you try like Steve were saying in the beginning he had plenty of money you just want to get a little bit extra and it's all it takes they can't but what they'll do is they'll come back and they say I'm sorry that check was bad or was it going to the wrong person or something like that and say you need to pay us back and that money will then come out of your account the end why did the end the guy in jail especially again the other kind of why did they agree to be it wouldn't hurt the business but they're already in jail though I had no business I'm sure it's not a life term obviously so right then what did they will get or did they have an agreement that they would get a shorter this that's oftentimes we talk with the the the Attorney General's office for our various people and they'll come back they'll up well I can offer you a reduced sentence to a certain degree if you would help these people out from the AOP far watch and so they say okay we'll sit down with them and a lot of it too is boasting this is how good I was I've got different voices for different parts of the country so a lot of it is boasting saying listen to how well I can do this so if the guy's got a certain talent he wants the people to show off his talents yeah I'm in jail but it's only for a short time I'll call somebody else and I'll sound like this or I'll sound like that or I'll sound like something else again exactly that's his point so again this guy over here would call a certain part of the country and do okay if I'm gonna call Texas I'm gonna sound like Texas those don't call South Carolina about sound this way yeah so we'll be here again and we'll be here in December then again in January and we'll talk about some other areas of scams and frauds on those two other dates and if you want to invite a lot of people come around say come on in this is interesting you'll you'll find out small things you don't know yeah exactly now they say the local police if you file a report there was a call the local police and have them write up a report okay and they track it by that I got come from Waterbury there's no place in Waterbury okay so we have to go to state police say police say go local police right away that there's no place in Waterbury oh yeah that's right well here fill a form out and if it's if it's moderate amount of money they're not really gonna be able to do too much if it's a bigger amount of money 30 40,000 okay fine and they'll get the FBI involved and then maybe they can get some other people involved someone's the bigger the money the more they're going to be interested try and get somebody back for you if you heard about how Norwich had a problem Norwich had one of their town employees got an email and they thought it came from the select board and from the chair of the select board and said after I authorized this person to get paid this much money and it went on for several months in the last what was it 200 yeah over 20000 dollars yeah no because of that and the fact there was a municipality they were able to get a lot of that money well percentage of that money back through insurance and then through but they weren't able to get all that money back a lot of these guys will come from from offshore over Pakistan or India that come from Philippines and they call in they can call in directly to the United States from the Philippines from from India from Pakistan not a problem we've got a worldwide telephone system you just dial codes boom boom boom and you're talking to somebody more big it's very very easy and what they'll do is on the phone it'll say a local phone number on the color ID that color ID whether you have it on the blocks or they have it on your TV it'll show a local phone number because they'll get a area code 802 and they'll get some code for a city then they'll attach four random numbers and what they often do is they'll take and put some business name and touch it right to that random number we had we live in a water where we had we're not coffee roses call us up now there's no reason why they would call us up we never work there you know I'm not gonna not gonna say you know call up Bill and see if we can get something him to buy some stuff I didn't have a business but they call us up and yeah we have been in Jerry's as well had nothing to do with it when they called us it was never the name that they showed up the screen it was always the business name Ben and Jerry's been on coffee roasters and it was never the message about Ben and Jerry's over my coffee roasters it was always some of the scam so I really can't trust that color ID if it's some good friend of yours with your good friends number and it may be that and probably the safest thing you can do is not pick up the phone because if you pick up the phone these scammers all develop lists of people who will pick up the phone and talk to them and once they talk to them every scammer wants that list so then they'll sell that list for a few hundred bucks to hundreds of people and of course today they made thousands of dollars just to have your name on a list and then all these other groups who got that list they'll stop calling some of them will pose a question and if nobody responds then it's obviously a fake call and some of them just have some little sounds that come up or if they don't answer at all with any kind of a message then people realize this is a machine and you just hang up On the West Coast I was inundated it was hard to discard with the scam phone calls so what I finally did I got a new phone number and it made it unregistered and everything stopped even then I was so inundated I've always listened to the message on the anti-machine before I picked up new friends would say oh I have to go through this every time but I mean I'm sorry but yeah and don't say when you get your name out of phone book because somewhere I was meeting with something I heard if they see like Helen well there's one that in the phone book probably way over whatever and I can get her to answer her phone but I took it out of the phone book we kept my phone number and my name I said to the operator well the only people that are going to get my phone number of my friends and the people I know and she says well they still that like you said they have to list and then they got it from somewhere right they'll give us generate they'll just generate the phone of the to call on computer like this totally random they don't necessarily know when they okay go hit the buttons okay one of the buttons up here for us is this okay F8 oh and press F8 it gives them a whole new number and it's calling Vermont that's all they know okay they call Vermont because the prefix says 802 okay if you call Massachusetts now they've got a half a dozen different eager codes I know is to have two of them now they got a bunch of them okay so the guy was a lot calling Massachusetts they won't know where by just call Massachusetts they could be called up to Springfield he calling on downtown Boston he didn't know he calls it over there and it won't know until somebody picks up yeah what that what the connection actually is magic mine was lost now and where it was I get my phone number out and I go you know my aunt Marie she didn't fly during the day nothing but some of me was it first they just got an unlisted number but it was the same number so it didn't make any difference so then I called again and I got both an unlisted number with a new number and then it's not all together something except for one day we had eight phone calls come in within 45 minutes and it was my own landline my own number calling me okay so in that case there we have yeah that was what was happening up at our house there the phone rang I picked it up and it said they were calling the same the real number yeah they wanted to talk to the person and so I just took the call as we're not calling back because she's not waiting for you to call her right but they were trying to get her so if your number is calling into your number you can easily call the phone company or a comcast or whoever manages your phone up and tell them what's the code okay and then give you like was a three or four buttons to press after that phone ever comes in and that will block that number from ever coming into your house simple as that but we didn't we only knew that we had never done it was all we'll see what happened sure enough it finally happened to us we get eight times or 45 minutes it's okay that's enough so we call a comcast it was that was blocked forever well we call we call the number 1 800 comcast okay and so you're probably my phone and we hold in gave us new instructions but that was it simple as that so that's something you can do well then that solicitors locally that sublimin and whatnot they stop calling because you can call and block and tell them that they're it's going to be if they call and solicit you that you're going to be fine right like to find when they want to which one of them donate to their yes organization so I was able to get those people was trying enough to find out you're on that list that's like that I'm going to find the assault ones locally sure pretty much know that yeah I think but I don't know about these other guys so it's just so many things I'll the next time we'll get more into individual emails I can show you tricks on the email whether you'll see one that comes in I think I've got one here that shows can't put my hands on real quick but that the I got one from the Navy Federal Credit Union and first off so I'm immediately suspicious of that because this is Navy Federal Credit Union and it's specifically for veterans and their families so they want me to log into this this like well that link on there was not going to give me to the Navy Federal Credit Union they'll give me to their particular websites and everything else they had the logo on there everything looked fine the English was fine it wasn't they didn't have any spellings of miss grammar things like that which is quite often the case but when I looked at I mean look at the address they had the displayed over the end into the right of it it had the address of the actual ascender in brackets and that actual address said Navy furder old not federal furder old that extra R in there gave it away that shows me that it was a totally different totally foreign kind of a address didn't have anything to do with the actual Navy Federal Credit Union a lot of stuff like that and a lot of folks will go to the oppression all I know when this guy's coming I know what he sounds like I know this is that well it'd be fine but all it takes is a little reinforcement and that's what we're trying to do here we're trying in this case on this particular program kind of make sure that your your attitude is is raised a little bit surveys aware of what they're trying to do for you what they're trying to bring in for information what they're trying to attack and they try and get build a profile on you and so forth calls that you can't relate to you can call right because even even the attorney general's office doesn't want you everybody calling yeah because it's enough stuff out yeah on that list you'll find a number of other for the Vermont attorney general's office and they have a great program there as well as the fraud watch network if you look on that sheet I think it's on the back that will talk about no it's on the front the federal the state of Vermont jury general consumer assistance program 800 number hey they've got a great bunch of people there who within the attorney general's office they will help you with any kind of scam or fraud you might want to so if you want to start with those folks they're an excellent resource